The next domino
By Bruce Walker
web posted April 11, 2005
In a month, Americans will know whether or not conservatives
have gained yet another important electoral victory in the world.
While it is hard for any patriotic America to actually root against
Tony Blair, the defeat of the Labour Party in the general election
this May would be a wonderful boost for American long term
goals.
Michael Howard, the Jewish refugee from a communist
dictatorship, is the leader of the Conservative Party and would
become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, should
the Tories win the general election. Today, several polls show
the Conservative Party with a slight edge over the Labour Party
and a Conservative victory is very possible.
The hubbub over the merits of the war in Iraq is history. What
matters now is the development of a vibrant, market oriented,
free democracy in Iraq and a voice against state socialism in the
councils of Europe. Howard could serve both roles very well.
He can say, personally, that he knows socialism does not work
and communism is evil.
As a Jew, Howard come go a long way toward helping to both
reassure Israel and reach out to Lebanese Christians and modern
Muslims in forming an "alliance of peace and of democracy" in
the Middle East. The construction of democracies which stretch
from Cairo to Kabul is a dream which may become a reality.
Howard understands just how good this would be for the world.
Michael Howard could also speak directly to American Jews in
a way that few other people in the world could. While it is quite
true that western democracies have elected Jewish prime
ministers, a long time ago, in Europe or converted Jewish
Christians like Disraeli, Howard would be the first Jew chosen
by an overwhelmingly non-Jewish electorate to lead them in a
long time.
The fact that he is the leader of the Conservative Party of the
United Kingdom should help befuddled Jews in America, raised
to believe that the Republican Party, not the Democrat Party,
was the party of the Ku Klux Klan, to see more clearly their
values and their interests. Putting Jewish political support more
"in play" could be just as devastating to Leftists in America as
putting the black vote "in play."
It is impossible to overstate, also, the importance of a
Conservative Party victory -- and election of a Jewish Prime
Minister in that nation -- while the world remembers still Pope
John Paul II, who is as revered by millions of Jews around the
world as he is by hundreds of millions of Catholics. Perhaps no
Christian in modern history has done more to comfort and to
allay Jewish fears of Christianity that Pope John Paul II.
As American Jews like Norm Coleman, Joe Lieberman and Ed
Koch speak with increasing openness about the morality of what
we are doing in the war against terrorism and on the lunacy of
contemporary Leftism, the measured, clear, crisp English voice
of a Conservative Prime Minister who is a practicing Jew and the
sweet memory of another man who suffered, like his Jewish
countrymen, under both Nazis and Communists in Poland, may
open a wonderful door to a world governed increasingly by
Judeo-Christian values.
In November 2004, I noted that the next leaders of Europe may
well be a Christian Democrat German woman who grew up
under Communism and whose faith is real, a conservative
Christian Hungarian who is now a French cabinet minister and
who genuinely likes America, and a Conservative British Jew,
also an immigrant from Communism.
The constellation of these new conservative stars is starkly
different than the dreary, envious and lifeless pseudo-leaders of
affluent continental Europe. Watch what happens in May. The
first domino -- albeit the likeable and in many ways admirable
Tony Blair -- may begin the chain reaction that transforms pagan
Europe into living and noble Europe. The good guys are winning.
Bruce Walker is a contributing editor with Enter Stage Right. He
is also a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The
Common Conservative.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com